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Abstract:

A method and system for creating an index of content without interfering
with the source of the content includes an offline content indexing
system that creates an index of content from an offline copy of data. The
system may associate additional properties or tags with data that are not
part of traditional indexing of content, such as the time the content was
last available or user attributes associated with the content. Users can
search the created index to locate content that is no longer available or
based on the associate attributes.

Claims:

1. In a data management system residing within a private computer network,
a method for indexing content, comprising:identifying a production copy
having one or more production data objects each having content, wherein
the production copy is available from a production data server within the
private computer network;identifying an offline copy from the private
computer network, wherein the offline copy includes one or more offline
data objects each having content, which are copies of the one or more
production data objects;identifying content within the one or more
offline data objects;creating a content index, without affecting the
production data server, of the identified content within the offline data
objects, wherein the content index classifies the identified content
based on at least one or more attributes of the identified content;
and,updating the content index by associating the offline data objects
with the production data objects.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein creating or updating the content index
comprises determining a state of data protection of the identified
content.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein creating or updating the content index
comprises determining at least a portion of a topology of a network in
which the identified content is stored.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein creating or updating the content index
comprises determining whether the identified content contains one or more
specified text strings or words.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising: eliminating duplicate content
within or among the offline data objects.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying an offline copy includes
identifying a copy to use from among multiple offline copies based on a
time required to access each of the multiple offline copies.

9. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling a
computer system to identify archived content, by a method
comprising:receiving a search request directed to target content, wherein
the search request contains classifications associated with the target
content;searching an index containing information associated with the
target content to generate search results, wherein the index contains
information identifying at least one content item that is not available
from mounted disk media or faster media, wherein the faster media has a
retrieval time or accessibility that is faster than mounted disk
media;for search results identifying content items that are not available
from mounted disk media or faster media, retrieving information about the
target content from an archive or secondary storage location;
andproviding the search results in response to the search request.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein searching a content
index comprises receiving an availability criteria related to the
content, searching based on information about the availability criteria
of the content, and generating search results indicating an estimated
time required to access the content.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein searching a content
index comprises: receiving a range of time during which deleted content
was last available, searching based on a time the content was deleted,
and generating search results for accessing the deleted content.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein searching a content
index comprises searching based on a time range.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein searching a content
index comprises searching an original copy of the content.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 further comprising after
receiving the search request, creating the content index dynamically
based on the content available in the system.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein searching a content
index comprises: identifying data items deleted from primary storage but
that are still available in secondary storage, identifying time
information associated with availability of the deleted data items, and
generating search results for accessing the deleted data items.

17. A computer system for indexing and searching content, comprising:an
offline copy component configured to select an offline copy of the
content,wherein the offline copy is a secondary copy of data, and wherein
the secondary copy of the data is a copy of a primary copy of the data
created using at least one of the following storage operations: snapshot,
backup, replication, archive and migration;a content indexing component
configured to store in a content index attributes of the content within
the selected offline copy; andan index searching component configured to
identify indexed content based on a received search query and the
attributes stored within the index,wherein the index of the content is
created without consuming additional resources of a system that is the
original source of the content.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein the content indexing component selects
a copy to use for indexing from among multiple offline copies of the data
based on a time required to access each of the multiple offline copies.

20. The system of claim 17 wherein the content indexing component selects
a copy to use for indexing from among multiple offline copies of the data
based on a server load or backup schedules associated with at least some
of the multiple offline copies.

Description:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001]The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application
Ser. No. 11/694,869 (Attorney Docket No. 60692-8046.US00), entitled
"METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR OFFLINE INDEXING OF CONTENT AND CLASSIFYING STORED
DATA," and filed on Mar. 30, 2007, which claims priority to U.S.
Provisional Application No. 60/852,584 (Attorney Docket No.
60692-8047.US00) entitled "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COLLABORATIVE
SEARCHING," and filed on Oct. 17, 2006, each of which is hereby
incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND

[0002]Computer systems contain large amounts of data. This data includes
personal data, such as financial data, customer/client/patient contact
data, audio/visual data, and much more. Corporate computer systems often
contain word processing documents, engineering diagrams, spreadsheets,
business strategy presentations, and so on. With the proliferation of
computer systems and the ease of creating content, the amount of content
in an organization has expanded rapidly. Even small offices often have
more information stored than any single employee can know about or
locate.

[0003]Many organizations have installed content management software that
actively searches for files within the organization and creates an index
of the information available in each file that can be used to search for
and retrieve documents based on a topic. Such content management software
generally maintains on index of keywords found within the content, such
as words in a document.

[0004]Creating a content index generally requires access to all of the
computer systems within an organization and can put an unexpected load on
already burdened systems. Some organizations defer content indexing until
off hours, such as early in the morning to reduce the impact to the
availability of systems. However, other operations may compete for system
resources during off hours. For example, system backups are also
generally scheduled for off hours. Systems may be placed in an
unavailable state during times when backups are being performed, called
the backup window, to prevent data from changing. For organizations with
large amounts of data, any interruption, such as that from content
indexing, jeopardizes the ability to complete the backup during the
backup window.

[0005]Furthermore, traditional content indexing only identifies
information that is currently available within the organization, and may
be insufficient to find all of the data required by an organization. For
example, an organization may be asked to produce files that existed
during a past time period in response to a legal discovery request.
Emails from five years ago or files that have been deleted or are no
longer available except in offsite backup tapes may be required to answer
such a request. An organization may be obligated to go through the time
consuming task of retrieving all of this content and conducting a manual
search for content related to the request.

[0006]There is a need for a system that overcomes the above problems, as
well as providing additional benefits.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007]FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates components of a system,
in one embodiment of the invention.

[0008]FIG. 2 is a block diagram that illustrates flow of data through the
system, in one embodiment.

[0009]FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates processing of a content
indexing component of the system, in one embodiment.

[0010]FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that illustrates processing of an index
searching component of the system, in one embodiment.

[0011]FIG. 5 illustrates a data structure containing entries of a content
index, in one embodiment.

[0012]In the drawings, the same reference numbers and acronyms identify
elements or acts with the same or similar functionality for ease of
understanding and convenience. To easily identify the discussion of any
particular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in a
reference number refer to the Figure number in which that element is
first introduced (e.g., element 1104 is first introduced and discussed
with respect to FIG. 11).

[0013]The headings provided herein are for convenience only and do not
necessarily affect the scope or meaning of the claimed invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

[0014]A method and system for creating an index of content without
interfering with the source of the content including an offline content
indexing system that creates an index of content from an offline copy of
data is provided. In general, organizations may have a primary or
production copy of source data and one or more offline or secondary
copies of data. Secondary copies can be created using various storage
operations such as snapshots, backups, replication, migration, and other
operations. The offline content indexing system can create an index of an
organization's content by examining secondary copies of the
organization's data (e.g., backup files generated from routine backups
performed by the organization). The offline content indexing system can
index content from current secondary copies of the system as well as
older offline copies that contain data that may no longer be available on
the organization's network. For example, the organization may have
secondary copies dating back several years that contain older data that
is no longer readily available, but may still be relevant to the
organization. The offline content indexing system may associate
additional properties with data that are not part of traditional indexing
of content, called metadata, such as the time the content was last
available or user attributes associated with the content. For example,
user attributes such as a project name with which a data file is
associated may be stored.

[0015]Members of the organization can search the created index to locate
content that is no longer readily available or based on the associated
attributes. For example, a user can search for content related to a
project that was cancelled a year ago. Thus, users can find additional
organization data that is not available in traditional content indexing
systems. Moreover, by using secondary copies, content indexing does not
impact the availability of the system that is the original source of the
content.

[0016]In some embodiments, members of the organization can search for
content within the organization through a single, unified user interface.
For example, members may search for content that originated on a variety
of computer systems within the organization. Thus, users can access
information from many systems within the organization and can search for
content independent of the content's original source. Members may also
search through multiple copies of the content, such as the original copy,
a first secondary backup copy, and other secondary or auxiliary copies of
the content.

[0017]Various attributes, characteristics, and identifiers (sometimes
referred to as tags or data classifications) can be associated with
content. The system may define certain built-in tags, such as a document
title, author, last modified date, and so on. Users of the system may
also define custom tags, or the system may automatically define custom
tags. For example, an administrator may add tags related to groups within
an enterprise, such as a tag identifying the department (e.g., finance,
engineering, or legal) that created a particular content item. Individual
users may also add tags relevant to that user. For example, a user might
add a descriptive field, such as a programmer adding a check-in
description to identify a change made to a version of a source code
document. For content that is inherently unstructured or appears random
outside of its intended purpose, tags are an especially effective way of
ensuring that a user can later find the content. For example, United
States Geological Survey (USGS) data is composed of many numbers in a
file that have little significance outside of the context of a map or
other associated viewer for the data. Tags allow descriptive attributes
or other meaningful information to be associated with the data, for
example, so that a searching user can know at a glance that particular
USGS data refers to a topological map of a nearby lake. Tags may be
associated with offline and online data through a metabase or other
suitable data structure that stores metadata and references to the
content to which the metadata applies. FIG. 5, discussed below, describes
one exemplary data structure used to store user tags associated with
content.

[0018]The invention will now be described with respect to various
embodiments. The following description provides specific details for a
thorough understanding of, and enabling description for, these
embodiments of the invention. However, one skilled in the art will
understand that the invention may be practiced without these details. In
other instances, well-known structures and functions have not been shown
or described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the description
of the embodiments of the invention.

[0019]The terminology used in the description presented below is intended
to be interpreted in its broadest reasonable manner, even though it is
being used in conjunction with a detailed description of certain specific
embodiments of the invention. Certain terms may even be emphasized below;
however, any terminology intended to be interpreted in any restricted
manner will be overtly and specifically defined as such in this Detailed
Description section.

Creation of an Offline Copy

[0020]As discussed above, the offline content indexing system may create a
secondary copy, such as an offline copy, as part of an existing backup
schedule performed by an organization. For example, an organization may
perform weekly backups that contain a complete copy of the organization's
data. It is generally not necessary for the offline content indexing
system to consume any further resources of the computer systems within
the organization that contain source content, since all of the needed
data is typically available in the backup data files. The offline content
indexing system may restore the backed up data to an intermediate
computer system that is not critical to the operation of the
organization, or may operate on the backup data files directly to
identify and index content. The offline content indexing system may also
create the offline copy using copies of data other than a traditional
backup, such as a snapshot, primary copy, secondary copy, auxiliary copy,
and so on.

[0021]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system uses a
change journal to create an offline copy of content. Modern operating
systems often contain built in change journaling functionality that
stores a journal entry whenever data is changed within a computer system.
The change journal generally contains a step-by-step, sequential, or
ordered log of what data changed and how the data changed that can be
processed at a later time to recreate the current state of the data. The
change journal may be used in conjunction with a full data backup or
other data protection mechanisms. The full backup can be used to
establish the state of the data at a prior point-in-time, and then the
change journal entries can be used to update the state with subsequent
changes.

[0022]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system or other
system uses a data snapshot to create an offline copy of content. Newer
operating systems and several data storage companies offer snapshot
software capable of taking a snapshot of the content currently on a
computer system with minimal impact to the availability of the system.
For example, the snapshot may simply note the current entry in a change
journal, and keep track of subsequent change journal entries for updating
the snapshot. These snapshots can be transferred from the host system and
read on another, less critical system or can be used to replicate the
data to a different. The offline content indexing system can then access
this intermediate system to identify content and perform content
indexing. Other technologies that will be recognized by those skilled in
the art, such as disk imaging, mirroring, incremental backups, and so on,
may be used in a manner similar to create an offline copy of data for
content indexing.

[0023]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system selects an
offline copy of data for indexing among several available offline copies.
For example, an organization may have several copies of data available on
different types of media. The same data may be available on a tape, on a
backup server, through network attached storage, or on fast mounted disk
media. The offline content indexing system may take into consideration
factors such as the access time of a particular media and the scheduled
load on a particular offline copy when selecting a copy to use for
indexing. For example, an offline copy stored on a hard drive may be
preferred over a copy stored on tape due to the faster access time of the
hard drive copy and the ability to randomly seek among the data rather
than accessing the data sequentially. Alternatively or additionally, a
backup server storing or responsible for otherwise desirable data to
index scheduled to perform an intensive operation such as encrypting
content may be skipped in favor of using a different server responsible
for an offline copy that is not expected to be needed by other systems
during the time expected to index the content. Similarly, the offline
content indexing system may prefer an unencrypted offline copy over an
encrypted one due to the extra effort required to decrypt the content to
index it.

Indexing of Content

[0024]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system may wait to
index content until a request related to the content is received.
Searches for offline content may not be as time sensitive as searches for
currently available content such that the effort of indexing the content
can be postponed until the content is required. For example, in a legal
discovery request there may be several days or even weeks available to
find content responsive to the request, such that indexing before a
request is received would unnecessarily burden an organization's systems.

[0025]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system may
postpone content indexing until other storage operations have been
performed. For example, one storage operation, called single instancing,
may reduce or eliminate redundant files contained in backup data caused
by many systems containing the same operating system or application
files. By postponing content indexing until after single instancing has
occurred, the offline content indexing system does not have to search as
much data and may complete the indexing process sooner and with less
burden to the organization's systems. A storage policy or other system
parameter setting or preference may define how and when content indexing
is done, and what other operations are performed before and after content
indexing (e.g., indexing content after single instancing). A storage
policy is a data structure that stores information about the parameters
of a storage operation. For example, the storage policy may define that
only some content is to be indexed, or that content indexing should occur
late at night when system resources are more readily available.

[0026]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system may update
a content index according to an indexing policy. An indexing policy is a
data structure that stores information about the parameters of an
indexing operation. For example, an organization may create a full backup
once a week, and may create an indexing policy that specifies that the
index should be updated following each weekly full backup. Indexing the
full backup creates a reference copy that the organization can store
according to legal requirements (e.g., ten years) to respond to any
compliance requests. The indexing policy may also specify that
incremental updates are performed on the index based on incremental
backups or other incremental data protection operations such as updates
from a change journal or snapshot application. For example, incremental
backups may be created that only specify the data that has changed since
the last full backup, and content changes identified within the
incremental backup may be used by the offline content indexing system to
update the index to reflect the new state of the content. If the backup
data indicates that content has been deleted, the indexed content may be
retained, but may be flagged or otherwise identified as having been
deleted.

Content Tags

[0027]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system tags or
otherwise identifies indexed content with additional information that may
help identify the information, for example, in a search for content. For
example, indexed content may be tagged with the location of the offline
copy in which the information was found, such as a particular backup tape
or other offline media. The system may also tag online content, such as
tagging a new file with the name of its author. If the content is later
deleted, the indexed content may be tagged with the date the content was
deleted, the user or process that deleted the content, or the date the
content was last available. Deleted content may later be restored, and
the indexed content may be identified by a version number to indicate
versions of the content that have been available on computing systems
throughout the content's history. Other information about the content's
availability may also be stored, such as whether the content is stored
onsite or is archived offsite, and an estimate of the time required to
retrieve the content. For example, if the content is stored offsite with
an external archival company, the company may require one week's notice
to retrieve the content, whereas if the content is stored on a tape
within the organization, the content may be available within an hour.
Other factors may also be used to provide a more accurate estimate, such
as the size of the content, the offset of the content if it is on tape,
and so on. During a search, the search results may indicate whether the
time required to retrieve certain content would exceed a retrieval
threshold. The system may also prohibit transferring content beyond a
given retrieval time to ensure compliance with a policy of the
organization.

[0028]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system tags
content with classifications. For example, the offline content indexing
system may classify content based on the type of application typically
used to process the content, such as a word processor for documents or an
email client for email. Alternatively or additionally, content may be
classified based on the department within the organization that generated
the content, such as marketing or engineering, or based on a project that
the content is associated with such as a particular case within a law
firm. Content may also be classified based on access rules associated
with the content. For example, some files may be classified as
confidential or as only being accessible to a certain group of people
within the organization. The system may identify keywords within the
content and classify the content automatically based on identified
keywords or other aspects of the content.

Searching

[0029]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system searches
for content based on temporal information related to the content. For
example, a user may search for content available during a specified time
period, such as email received during a particular month. A user may also
search specifically for content that is no longer available, such as
searching for files deleted from the user's primary computer system. The
user may perform a search based on the attributes described above, such
as a search based on the time an item was deleted, or based on a project
that the item was associated with. A user may also search based on
keywords associated with user attributes, such as searching for files
that only an executive of the organization would have access to,
searching for files accessed by a particular user, or searching for files
tagged as confidential.

[0030]In some embodiments, the offline content indexing system provides
search results that predict the availability of content. For example,
content stored offsite may need to be located, shipped, and then loaded
back into the organization's systems before it is accessible. The offline
content indexing system may provide a time estimate of how soon the
content could be available for searching as well as providing limited
information about the content immediately based on data stored in the
index. For example, the content indexing system may maintain a database
of hardware and libraries of media available with the organization, as
well as the current location of each of these items such that an estimate
can be generated for retrieving the hardware or libraries of media. For
example, certain tape libraries may be stored offsite after a specified
period of time, and content stored within the tape library may take
longer to retrieve than content in a tape library stored onsite in the
organization. Similarly, the offline content index system may estimate
that data stored on tape will take slightly longer to retrieve than data
that is available through magnetic storage over the network.

Figures

[0031]Unless described otherwise below, aspects of the invention may be
practiced with conventional systems. Thus, the construction and operation
of the various blocks shown in FIG. 1 may be of conventional design, and
need not be described in further detail herein to make and use the
invention, because such blocks will be understood by those skilled in the
relevant art. One skilled in the relevant art can readily make any
modifications necessary to the blocks in FIG. 1 (or other embodiments or
Figures) based on the detailed description provided herein.

[0032]FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates components of the system,
in one embodiment. The offline content indexing system 100 contains an
offline copy component 110, a content indexing component 120, an index
searching component 130, an index policy component 140, a data
classification component 150, a single instancing component 160, an
encryption component 170, and an archive retrieval component 180. The
offline copy component 110 creates and identifies offline or other
secondary copies of data, such as backup data, snapshots, and change
journal entries. The content indexing component 120 creates and updates a
content index based on offline copies of data. The index searching
component 130 searches the index based on user requests to identify
target content. The index policy component 140 specifies a schedule for
updating the content index incrementally or refreshing the content index,
such as from a full weekly backup. The data classification component 150
adds data classifications to the content index based on various
classifications of the data, such as the department that created the
data, and access information associated with the data. The single
instancing component 160 eliminates redundant instances of information
from offline copies of data to reduce the work involved in creating an
index of the offline copy of the data. The encryption component 170
encrypts and decrypts data as required to permit access to the data for
content indexing. The archive retrieval component 180 retrieves archived
content from offsite storage, tape libraries, and other archival
locations based on requests to access the content and may also provide
estimates of the time required to access a particular content item.

[0033]FIG. 1 and the following discussion provide a brief, general
description of a suitable computing environment in which the invention
can be implemented. Although not required, aspects of the invention are
described in the general context of computer-executable instructions,
such as routines executed by a general-purpose computer, e.g., a server
computer, wireless device or personal computer. Those skilled in the
relevant art will appreciate that the invention can be practiced with
other communications, data processing, or computer system configurations,
including: Internet appliances, hand-held devices (including personal
digital assistants (PDAs)), wearable computers, all manner of cellular or
mobile phones, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based or
programmable consumer electronics, set-top boxes, network PCs,
mini-computers, mainframe computers, and the like. Indeed, the terms
"computer," "host," and "host computer" are generally used
interchangeably herein, and refer to any of the above devices and
systems, as well as any data processor.

[0034]Aspects of the invention can be embodied in a special purpose
computer or data processor that is specifically programmed, configured,
or constructed to perform one or more of the computer-executable
instructions explained in detail herein. Aspects of the invention can
also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks or
modules are performed by remote processing devices, which are linked
through a communications network, such as a Local Area Network (LAN),
Wide Area Network (WAN), Storage Area Network (SAN), Fibre Channel, or
the Internet. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may
be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

[0035]Aspects of the invention may be stored or distributed on
computer-readable media, including magnetically or optically readable
computer discs, hard-wired or preprogrammed chips (e.g., EEPROM
semiconductor chips), nanotechnology memory, biological memory, or other
data storage media. Indeed, computer implemented instructions, data
structures, screen displays, and other data under aspects of the
invention may be distributed over the Internet or over other networks
(including wireless networks), on a propagated signal on a propagation
medium (e.g., an electromagnetic wave(s), a sound wave, etc.) over a
period of time, or they may be provided on any analog or digital network
(packet switched, circuit switched, or other scheme). Those skilled in
the relevant art will recognize that portions of the invention reside on
a server computer, while corresponding portions reside on a client
computer such as a mobile or portable device, and thus, while certain
hardware platforms are described herein, aspects of the invention are
equally applicable to nodes on a network.

[0036]FIG. 2 is a block diagram that illustrates the flow of data through
the system 100, in one embodiment. Content is initially stored on a data
server 210 that may be a user computer, data warehouse server, or other
information store accessible via a network. The data is accessed by a
backup manager 220 to perform a regular backup of the data. The backup
manager 220 may be contained within the data server 210 or may be a
separate component as shown. For example, the backup manager 220 may be
part of a server dedicated to managing backup or other storage
operations. Backup data is stored in a backup data store 230 such as a
network attached storage device, backup server, tape library, or data
silo. The content indexing system 240 accesses data from the backup data
store 230 to perform the functions described above. As illustrated in the
diagram, because the content indexing system 240 works with an offline
copy of the data, the original data server 210 is not negatively impacted
by the operations of the content indexing system 240.

[0037]FIGS. 3-4 are representative flow diagrams that depict processes
used in some embodiments. These flow diagrams do not show all functions
or exchanges of data, but instead they provide an understanding of
commands and data exchanged under the system. Those skilled in the
relevant art will recognize that some functions or exchange of commands
and data may be repeated, varied, omitted, or supplemented, and other
(less important) aspects not shown may be readily implemented.

[0038]FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates the processing of the
content indexing component 120 of the system 100, in one embodiment. The
component is invoked when new content is available or additional content
is ready to be added to the content index. In step 310, the component
selects an offline copy of the data to be indexed. For example, the
offline copy may be a backup of the data or a data snapshot. In step 320,
the component identifies content within the offline copy of the data. For
example, the component may identify data files such as word processing
documents, spreadsheets, and presentation slides within a backup data
file. In step 330, the component updates an index of content to make the
content available for searching. The component may parse, process, and
store the information. For example, the component may add information
such as the location of the content, keywords found within the content,
and other supplemental information about the content that may be helpful
for locating the content during a search. After step 330, these steps
conclude.

[0039]FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that illustrates the processing of the
index searching component 130 of the system 100, in one embodiment. In
step 410, the component receives a search request specifying criteria for
finding matching target content. For example, the search request may
specify one or more keywords that will be found in matching documents.
The search request may also specify boolean operators, regular
expressions, and other common search specifications to identify
relationships and precedence between terms within the search query. In
step 420, the component searches the content index to identify matching
content items that are added to a set of search results. For example, the
component may identify documents containing specified keywords or other
criteria and add these to a list of search results. In step 425, the
component generates search results based on the content identified in the
content index. In step 430, the component selects the first search
result. In decision step 440, if the search result indicates that the
identified content is offline, then the component continues at step 450,
else the component continues at step 455. For example, the content may be
offline because it is on a tape that has been sent to an offsite storage
location. In step 450, the component retrieves the archived content.
Additionally or alternatively, the component may provide an estimate of
the time required to retrieve the archived content and add this
information to the selected search result. In decision step 455, if there
are more search results, then the component loops to step 430 to get the
next search results, else the component continues at step 460. In step
460, the component provides the search results in response to the search
query. For example, the user may receive the search results through a web
page that lists the search results or the search results may be provided
to another component for additional processing through an application
programming interface (API). The component may also perform additional
processing of the search results before presenting the search results to
the user. For example, the component may order the search results, rank
them by retrieval time, and so forth. After step 460, these steps
conclude.

[0040]FIG. 5 illustrates some of the data structures used by the system.
While the term "field" and "record" are used herein, any type of data
structure can be employed. For example, relevant data can have preceding
headers, or other overhead data preceding (or following) the relevant
data. Alternatively, relevant data can avoid the use of any overhead
data, such as headers, and simply be recognized by a certain byte or
series of bytes within a serial data stream. Any number of data
structures and types can be employed herein.

[0041]FIG. 5 illustrates a data structure containing entries of the
content index, in one embodiment. The offline content indexing system
uses this and similar data structures to provide more intelligent content
indexing. For example, the offline content indexing system may index
multiple copies of data and data available from the multiple copies using
a secondary copy of data stored on media with a higher availability based
on the location or other attributes indicated by the data structure
described below. As another example, the offline content indexing system
may prefer an unencrypted copy of the data to an encrypted copy to avoid
wasting time unnecessarily decrypting the data. The table 500 contains a
location column 510, a keywords column 520, a user tags column 530, an
application column 540, and an available column 550. The table 500
contains three sample entries. The first entry 560 specifies a location
to a file on the corporate intranet using a web universal resource
locator (URL). The entry 560 contains keywords "finance," "profit," and
"loss" that identify content within the file. The entry 560 contains tags
added by a user that specify that the content comes from the accounting
department and is confidential. The entry 560 indicates that a
spreadsheet program typically consumes the content, and that the entry is
immediately available. Another entry 570 specifies data stored on a local
tape that is a personal email, and can be available in about an hour.
Another entry 580 specifies an offsite tape that is a presentation
related to a cancelled project. The entry 580 refers to offsite data that
is available within one week due to the delay of retrieving the archived
data from the offsite location.

CONCLUSION

[0042]From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that specific embodiments
of the offline content indexing system have been described herein for
purposes of illustration, but that various modifications may be made
without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. For
example, web pages are often unavailable and their content may change
such that the offline content indexing system could be used to retrieve
point in time copies of the content useful for conducting historical
analysis. As another example, although files have been described, other
types of content such as user settings, application data, emails, and
other data objects can all be indexed by the system. Accordingly, the
invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.

[0043]Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout the
description and the claims, the words "comprise," "comprising," and the
like are to be construed in an inclusive sense, as opposed to an
exclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of
"including, but not limited to." The word "coupled", as generally used
herein, refers to two or more elements that may be either directly
connected, or connected by way of one or more intermediate elements.
Additionally, the words "herein," "above," "below," and words of similar
import, when used in this application, shall refer to this application as
a whole and not to any particular portions of this application. Where the
context permits, words in the above Detailed Description using the
singular or plural number may also include the plural or singular number
respectively. The word "or" in reference to a list of two or more items,
that word covers all of the following interpretations of the word: any of
the items in the list, all of the items in the list, and any combination
of the items in the list.

[0044]The above detailed description of embodiments of the invention is
not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise
form disclosed above. While specific embodiments of, and examples for,
the invention are described above for illustrative purposes, various
equivalent modifications are possible within the scope of the invention,
as those skilled in the relevant art will recognize. For example, while
processes or blocks are presented in a given order, alternative
embodiments may perform routines having steps, or employ systems having
blocks, in a different order, and some processes or blocks may be
deleted, moved, added, subdivided, combined, and/or modified. Each of
these processes or blocks may be implemented in a variety of different
ways. Also, while processes or blocks are at times shown as being
performed in series, these processes or blocks may instead be performed
in parallel, or may be performed at different times.

[0045]The teachings of the invention provided herein can be applied to
other systems, not necessarily the system described above. The elements
and acts of the various embodiments described above can be combined to
provide further embodiments.

[0046]These and other changes can be made to the invention in light of the
above Detailed Description. While the above description details certain
embodiments of the invention and describes the best mode contemplated, no
matter how detailed the above appears in text, the invention can be
practiced in many ways. Details of the system may vary considerably in
implementation details, while still being encompassed by the invention
disclosed herein. As noted above, particular terminology used when
describing certain features or aspects of the invention should not be
taken to imply that the terminology is being redefined herein to be
restricted to any specific characteristics, features, or aspects of the
invention with which that terminology is associated. In general, the
terms used in the following claims should not be construed to limit the
invention to the specific embodiments disclosed in the specification,
unless the above Detailed Description section explicitly defines such
terms. Accordingly, the actual scope of the invention encompasses not
only the disclosed embodiments, but also all equivalent ways of
practicing or implementing the invention under the claims.

[0047]While certain aspects of the invention are presented below in
certain claim forms, the inventors contemplate the various aspects of the
invention in any number of claim forms. For example, while only one
aspect of the invention is recited as embodied in a computer-readable
medium, other aspects may likewise be embodied in a computer-readable
medium. Accordingly, the inventors reserve the right to add additional
claims after filing the application to pursue such additional claim forms
for other aspects of the invention.